New Stars News

[h3]Fixed:[/h3]
- Empires' names and primary flag color were randomized when creating a new game.

[h2]The Hex Worlds Update is now live![/h2]

[p]The biggest update introduces fully playable Hex Worlds with three world sizes, alongside major AI improvements, quality-of-life upgrades, balance tweaks, and a wide range of fixes. Galactic politics are now more dynamic, colonies are clearer to manage, and overall competition between empires is stronger than ever.[/p]

[h3]Hex Worlds[/h3]
[p]Explore and colonize procedurally generated Hex Worlds available in Small, Medium, and Large sizes. Each world can generate across 52 unique biomes and 7 distinct world types, allowing for more varied colony layouts, strategic planning, and visual diversity across the galaxy.[/p]



[h3]Mechanics[/h3]

• Every 2 adjacent buildings gives a bonus resource.
  
• Some tiles have random yields (especially on void worlds).
  
• Businesses get 4 build slots to build anywhere available on the colony.
  

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
Note: Saves from previous updates will not work with this version.
[h3]Added[/h3]

• Hex Worlds (Small, Medium, and Large)
• Official cross‑platform multiplayer support
• Fleet Panel → Added a “Go To” button
  
• Tips → Added previous/next buttons and sieging/military hints
  

[h3]Improved[/h3]

• AI Empires:
  • Are far less likely to declare war when agendas were satisfied
    
  • Unite against the player through their own galactic unions
    
  • Move more strategically during wars
    
  • Stop prioritising human players over other AI empires
    
• Colony Panel:
  • Stats are now more descriptive
    
  • Owner and business slots are now displayed clearly
    
• Subjects → “Suzerain” status renamed to “Tributary”
  
• Fleets → Any type of fleet now explores hyperlanes when moving to star systems
  
• New Game → Galaxy generation now spawns empires more evenly in distance
  

[h3]Changed[/h3]

• AI Opinion → Now based on shared ethics instead of government type
  
• Fleet Capacity → Renamed to “Max Fleet Size”
  
• Game Events → Costs and rewards are now consistent across all game durations
  
• Music → Restored several music tracks from 2022
  
• Multiplayer → Disabled medium‑to‑impractical galaxy sizes to prevent packet issues (for now)
  
• Toggles → Off/on states are now much clearer (red and blue)
  
• Battle → Combat now triggers whenever enemies are within the same system, instead of using a limited combat range
  

[h3]Fixed[/h3]

• Camera → Rotating the camera while the fleet panel was open caused control issues
  
• Clans → Sometimes clans converted into normal empires, when spawning
  
• Combat
  • Enemy fleets waited unnecessarily before engaging allied fleets
    
  • Battles loaded from saves sometimes didn't resume correctly
    
  • Sometimes starbases joined the same battle twice.
    
  • Sometimes enemy fleet reinforced battle on the incorrect sides
    
  • Laser fire visuals were oversized
    
• Colony Panel
  
  
  • “Go To” button didn't function correctly
    
  • Upgrade orders were previously displayed the same as build orders
    
  • Players were able to remove build orders for buildings not yet constructed but already queued for upgrade
    
  • Double‑upgrading the same building was possible
    
• Exploration → Planet events sometimes didn't display when exploring new systems
  
• Galaxy Map → Build animation continued after the order finished
  
• Leaderboard → Sometimes didn't rank players by score correctly
  
• Linux → some text had issues displaying on Linux
  
• Main Menu
  
  
  
  • Player profile info was wiped after exiting the game from the pause menu
    
  • Sometimes “Reveal All” and “Meet All Players” toggles didn't apply in-game
    
  • Map toggles often required double‑clicking to actuate
    
• Map & Empire Settings → Settings often didn't randomise properly on load
  
• Multiplayer → Numerous multiplayer issues were resolved
  
• New Game
  
  
  
  • Players sometimes spawned on broken worlds
    
  • “Meet Player” dialog appeared when starting a second game with tutorial tips enabled
    
• Notifications
  • Sometimes became unresponsive after adjusting music settings
    
  • “Liberated colony” ping sometimes triggered repeatedly after making peace
    
• Saving → After loading a save, sometimes game settings were randomly changed during load.
  
• Ship Builder
  
  
  
  • Preset list sometimes appeared empty and didn't update correctly
    
  • Combat mode caused excessive console logs that caused lag
    
  • Deleting a preset used by a ship caused simulation errors
    
  • Ships sometimes spawned without turrets or with incorrect default presets
    
• Star Systems
  
  
  
  • Fleet orders sometimes didn't update visually as intended
    
  • Ships remained stationary in edge cases
    
• Star System Panel → “Go To” button didn't trigger properly
  
• Starbase Panel → Ships added to the build queue didn't update immediately
  
• Unions
  
  
  
  • Sometimes players weren't shown as allied when joining a union
    
  • Subjects no longer remained allied after joining a union
    

[h3]Tweaked[/h3]

• Leaderboard → Now reveals player names even if previously unmet
  
• Hyperlane Density (>2) → Reduced the number of hyperlanes generated
  
• Save Files → Adopt a more consistent naming convention
  
• Camera → Reduced accidental edge‑scrolling
  
• Visuals → Reduced city light intensity of colony worlds
  
• Colony
  
  
  
  • Occupation now damages 10% of buildings (previously 20%)
    
  • Siege difficulty from soldiers halved
    
  • Reduced siege difficulty from buildings and halved population contribution
    
  • Build Cost
    
    • Reduced from 90 to 75 minerals on standard speed
      
    • Final upgrade reduced from 360 to 120 minerals
      
    • Slightly increased power cost of capital upgrades (+15 power on standard speed)
      
• Other Tweaks
  
  
  
  • Space squids now spawn as a single squid, attempt peaceful contact, but die trying
    
  • Base tech costs reduced on the lowest durations
    
  • Jump‑drive distortion time halved
    
  • Wormhole travel technology unlocked earlier and appears more frequently
    

[h3]Removed[/h3]

• Colony context menu
  
• Game wiki (backend server ceased to exist under mysterious circumstances)
  
• Wiki button
  

Note: Not all changes have been listed.

[h3]Full Release[/h3]
New Stars has officially launched out of Early Access.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2231270/New_Stars/

[h3]Fixed:[/h3][p]- Events: Fixed a bug where game event notifications (pings) did not show at all.[/p][p]- Fleets: Fixed a bug where fleets didn't stack correctly after opening galaxy map for the first time.[/p]

[h3]Fixed bugs where...[/h3]

• [p]Map: Empires attempted to spawn in same star system on compact maps[/p]
• [p]Camera: Panning while screen edging causes camera rubber-banding[/p]
• [p]Camera: Panning over edge boundary causes rubber-banding[/p]
• [p]Game: Fixed game breaking when going to the main menu, then starting or loading a game[/p]

[p]Note: Wiki will be down until further notice because server appears to be on strike.[/p]

A new update has been launched.

[h2]Experimental Multiplayer Support:[/h2]

• Has been in the works since July 2022.
  
• Should work, but is unstable.
  
• Tested to work between two Steam accounts, but not tested between different regions.
  
• Loading multiplayer save functionality was added, but not thoroughly tested.
  
• Multiplayer games may not start with huge or impractical maps.
  

Throughout development, New Stars has been largely been focused on a singleplayer experience for simplicity, and multiplayer playtesting wasn't really playtested due to development contraints etc., but I am adding it because I believe it should now work to an okay standard - no guarantees though.

[h2]New map size "Impractical" - 1000 stars:[/h2]

• As the name suggests, this map size is chaotically large.
  
• Won't work with multiplayer (packets are too big).
  
• Suggested by Grendain.
  

There were other improvements, such as the main menu theme being different, and some bug fixes, but I forgot the rest.